Inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller. Filmed over 211 days in nine countries and five continents over four years, THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change.

Directed by Avi Lewis, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond.

Interwoven with these stories of struggle is Klein’s narration, connecting the carbon in the air with the economic system that put it there. Throughout the film, Klein builds to her most controversial and exciting idea: that we can seize the existential crisis of climate change to transform our failed economic system into something radically better.

What if confronting the climate crisis is the best chance we’ll ever get to build a better world?

Special event for the ICS seminar this week- A poetry reading

A poetry reading and slide show of work that includes environmental and conservation themes will be put on by students and faculty from noon-1 p.m. Wednesday, April 13 in Hulman Memorial Student Union, Room 316.

This event is a departure from the usual more academic seminars that have been held weekly for the Institute for Community Sustainabilityseminar series this term. The public and students in particular are invited.

The third seminar for the ICS seminar season will be given by Steve Hardin, associate librarian.

The title is “Don’t stop with Google: Finding sustainability information.” Steve is the library’s liaison for the Communication, Earth and Environmental Systems, Math and Computer Science and the Political Science departments and is therefore well equipped to assist with library research on almost any topic that has to do with sustainable development.

Creating a partnership between traditional cultures and scientific innovation is possible and beneficial to the planet, says an environmental biologist who will speak at Indiana State University in observance of Earth Day.

Robin Kimmerer, professor of environmental biology at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, is the founding director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, which aims to create programs drawing on the wisdom of both indigenous populations and scientific knowledge for shared goals of sustainability.

“I believe that environmental science and traditional knowledge can be symbiotic in nature, where the strengths and limitations of each knowledge system are balanced by the other,” Kimmerer said. “For example, the scientific method necessarily separates the observer and the observed, attempts to be strictly objective, rational and reductionist. Science engages the human powers of intellect, but explicitly excludes the other ways that humans have of understanding the world.

“Many of the questions of sustainability that we face involve the intersection between human culture and values and the natural world,” she added. “So relying on a single knowledge system, which excludes human values, is inadequate to address the challenges we face. Traditional knowledge is more holistic and includes values, ethics and responsibilities … so makes a good partner to balance scientific ways of knowing.”